Farm Office

From her office in the middle of the house, Mrs. Sandburg paid the bills, answered correspondence and kept both the house and farm running smoothly.  She took care of the day to day business so that her husband could focus on his writing.

In order to manage the large goat herd, Mrs. Sandburg was often in her office studying goat lineages, calculating bloodlines and making breeding decisions based on science. She was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from the University of Chicago, and had a keen interest in genetics. She sold milk to local dairies, sold goats to North and South America, and kept an active schedule of showing goats at regional contests.

Click the audio below to learn how Mrs. Sandburg and her daughter Helga first started raising dairy goats.

"While we were in Michigan, one of the children, our youngest Helga, wanted a cow and then Carl was the one who said, you can’t possibly handle a cow, but a goat would be the right one for your size to handle. Goats you can just put in the family car and drive off, she went with me anyway to see about the goats since her father really said no, that a cow was impossible. We had some goats near the house, and I not only went home with one goat, but I said two goats, we’ll certainly need two goats if we’re going to have our family milk supply. Those goats turned out to be way out of the ordinary goats, that’s how we got into having goats".